Opposites QI

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Goodbye, and thanks.

Thanks for coming to IQ.

Tonight, we're in opposite world,

where everything you thought was right

is either wrong or left, and vice versa.

Or it might be the other way round.

Anyway, up in reverse order,

these are not my guests.

On the contrary, Sara Pascoe.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

No way, it's Jimmy Carr.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

It definitely can't be Colin Lane.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

And I can't believe it's not Davies Alan, but it is.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

So, because we're doing opposites tonight,

every time you get something wrong, you get a bonus.

-Ah.

-LAUGHTER

That's good, isn't it?

Alan's big night. LAUGHTER

Let's listen to the buzzers. Sara goes...

# Night and day... #

-That's nice. Fits with our theme.

-Classy. Beautiful.

That's very nice, isn't it? Colin goes...

# Ebony and Ivory... #

Aah, I want a drink now.

Jimmy goes...

# Love and marriage, love and marriage... #

LAUGHTER

They're not really opposites, are they?

-What, love and marriage?

-Yeah.

-If you're doing it right.

-Oh.

LAUGHTER

And Alan goes...

# In, out, in, out

# In, out, in, out

# In, out, in, out Shake it all about... #

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Very base level Kama Sutra there.

LAUGHTER

Oh, dear.

"In, out, in, out, in, out, shake it all about," you'll be fine.

LAUGHTER

Anyway, rather than getting to business,

-we should do the opposite and have some fun...

-Woohoo!

..so I've got some alcopops, like this.

I've got some... Look at these.

-There's your balloons.

-Thank you.

And I've got fun chocolates. LAUGHTER

There's another balloon for you.

OK. So, here's the thing...

-Sorry, I've dropped mine.

-..it's party time...

Oh, you've dropped your balloon.

-Hang on a minute.

-Jimmy's going to be a silly billy.

-No, don't.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

I'll do it.

OK, thanks, Colin.

-Sorry.

-Yes?

-If you just...

Could you hold up the red balloon for a second there?

Cos it'll look like a Banksy.

LAUGHTER

There you go.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That took the... Party time, OK?

Oh, yeah, here we go.

You are driving home from the shops, you are so excited.

-That's good, isn't it, Colin?

-Oh, that's me!

ALL: Aww!

You're so excited that, unfortunately,

-you crash into a tree.

-Oh.

LAUGHTER

Yeah. I want to know what happens to the helium balloons?

-They...

-Well, I'm more worried about him!

-LAUGHTER

-Yeah. What about me? What about me?

-Yes.

-Yeah, that's quite heartless.

-Yeah, sorry.

If the helium balloons pop and then you ring the ambulance,

they won't believe you, they'll think you're doing a prank call.

LAUGHTER

-Because you'll sound like a silly boy.

-Yes.

Alan, what were you going to say?

-They're going to keep going.

-Which way?

Up?

KLAXON BLARES

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Is it something to do with the airbag?

Cos the airbag's going to get released

and then there's another gas in the car.

-So, do they fall in love...

-LAUGHTER

..and run away together?

-No, it's nothing to do with the airbag.

-OK.

-So, helium less dense than air.

-Yeah.

-All right.

So, everything else is going to get thrown forward,

the alcopops and chocolates are going to get thrown forward,

They stay still.

KLAXON BLARES

This is a stupid show!

LAUGHTER

-They go down, they go down.

-No.

-They go backwards.

-They go down. They go down.

-They go backwards!

-Backwards.

-They go backwards, they go backwards.

# Ivory...

They go backwards.

Then, when you accelerate,

what's going to happen to the helium balloon?

-Cos the helium balloon's gone backwards.

-They'll go sideways.

-They're going to go...

-Up.

-..the same, they're going to go forwards.

-Forwards.

Yes, they're going to go forwards.

Exactly.

OK, so enough party time, let's put things away.

Cos there's a limit to the amount of fun you're allowed. There you go.

OK, so we're doing opposites, what's the opposite of monopoly?

Fun.

LAUGHTER

The danger of thinking it's fun.

Yeah. Extra point.

So, monopoly, a single supplier holding consumers to ransom.

So, what we're looking for is a single consumer

who can hold suppliers to ransom. It's called a monopsony.

And is the opposite of monopoly, it's possibly...

I love the way you kept going with that question

-and that, never in a million years, were we going to get it.

-LAUGHTER

I did economics A-level for a year and that's what it felt like.

LAUGHTER

So, what's an example?

So, the BBC, for example, has a monopsony on radio drama, right?

Lots of people want to write it, lots of people want to be in it,

but, pretty much, the BBC are the only people who produce it.

So, there are lots and lots of suppliers,

-but there's only one consumer.

-And one listener.

LAUGHTER

She's very lonely.

-She's very lonely.

-She's doing the washing up, she's fine.

She can't afford a telly. She just can't afford one.

-She won't be seeing this.

-LAUGHTER

So, a single passenger, say, disembarking from a train,

and there's lots of taxis waiting,

that would be another example. There's only one consumer

and everybody is vying for their custom, so it's a monopsony.

So, monopsony is the opposite of monopoly, but nobody ever uses it.

And there are lots of words called orphaned negatives.

So, these are words that have the opposites,

but nobody uses them, they are now obsolete.

So, what would be the opposite of ineffable?

-Effable.

-Effable.

-Effable.

-Effable, but nobody ever uses it,

-it's a perfectly good word, isn't it?

-I've heard people say that.

Effable? It's not effable?

"Oh, he's got nice trousers on today.

-He's totally eff-able.

-LAUGHTER

In that sense.

APPLAUSE

In polite company.

Yeah, well, funny and...

-thank you.

-LAUGHTER

I really appreciate it.

They're very roomy.

But there are a lot of good ones.

Incessant, so cessant.

Nobody talks about cessant any more.

There's a weird thing about this word, OK?

What it tells you in the dictionary

is that "cessant" hasn't been used since 1701.

What happened that year?

They thought, "Do you know? I'm done with that word."

What about, for you, what about disdain?

Oh, yes, the opposite of being a good Dane, yes, a disdain.

LAUGHTER

ALAN AND COLIN: Dis Dane, dat Dane.

-Dis Dane.

-Yeah. LAUGHTER

Nocent, anybody?

Yes-cent.

LAUGHTER

-Innocent.

-Innocent.

-Innocent, so a nocent...

-Yeah, a nocent was a criminal.

-Oh.

-In-nocent.

Until about the 17th century,

so nocentem, Latin meaning "to harm".

Is nonchalant...

-chalant?

-Chalant. I suppose...

-Chalant.

-Yes.

I'm going to refer to you as chalant, I like that.

-I think that sounds rather good.

-Chalant.

Yeah, chalant and effable.

LAUGHTER

Stop it, you.

To be fair, Jimmy, I had to have it pointed out to me.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Inflammable?

-Oh, I hate... inflammable and flammable?

-Hmm.

-Same thing.

It is exactly the same thing, it's not an orphan negative at all.

In fact, the opposite of flammable is non-flammable.

"Explosif."

-I beg your pardon?

-Just... Just reading.

Oh, explosif. LAUGHTER

It used to be inflammable cos it comes from the Latin inflammare.

But they adopted flammable deliberately in the 20th century,

because, honestly, inflammable seemed ambiguous,

so that is one of the reasons why we now say flammable

-and then non-flammable.

-Oh.

-Right.

Anybody know what a contronym is?

Oh, so it's like synonym?

Yeah?

-Antonym?

-Antonyms, yes.

So, it's a word that is also its own opposite.

So, screen, which means to show - like screen a film -

and screen also means to hide.

-Yeah, hide. That's nice.

-Another example, bound.

So fastened to the spot and also heading somewhere.

-Oh, that's good, isn't it?

-That's really nice.

-They're good, aren't they, contronyms? Do you like this?

-Yes.

Fast, so moving quickly, and stuck and unable to move. It's the two...

And also, I always with fast food, to fast is not to eat.

-And then also to eat loads really cheaply.

-Yeah, there you go.

LAUGHTER

-Contronyms... I think we may need marijuana for this.

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

It appears to me like this should be a conversation that happens like,

-"Yeah, man, fast."

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-"Yeah."

-"Cos it's like..."

-"But, no, man, fast food."

-LAUGHTER

I love that your impression of someone on drugs

-means you've never taken them.

-LAUGHTER

Antigrams.

Anybody know what an antigram is?

It is the opposite of a gram.

LAUGHTER

So, these are words where, if you do an anagram,

the anagram itself has the opposite meaning to the original word.

-So...

-Impossible!

-Whoa!

Yeah. Dormitories, tidier rooms, is one, there's one.

Customers, I like this one,

the anagram is store scum.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

There's a few people out there work in retail.

LAUGHTER

Here's another one, an antigram.

A volunteer fireman -

I never run to a flame.

LAUGHTER

And forty-five is an anagram

of over fifty.

LAUGHTER

That's just a woman lying, basically.

LAUGHTER

Now, you'll need to sort the sheep from the goats.

So, let's play...

This has really dumbed down, hasn't it?

-LAUGHTER

-I like it, I like it.

This show used to be something. I mean...

What is the difference between a sheep and a goat?

I think it's something that they do, rather than what they look like.

-OK. What do you think it is that they do?

-Jumping.

I think... I love that clip so much when people are doing yoga...

-Yeah.

-..and the goats are jumping on them.

And I've never seen a sheep...

LAUGHTER

-Seriously?

-You've not seen this?

-No...

Basically, there's all these people and they're doing downward dogs,

-and then tiny goats...

-I'm going to stop you right there.

LAUGHTER

-They're doing yoga poses...

-Oh, I see.

-..with their bums in the air...

-Right.

..and goats are just jumping on them, like they're hillocks,

from person to person. It went crazy.

What kind of a class is that?!

But the problem is...

-So, you're supposed to be so focused on your yoga...

-Yes.

-..you ignore the goats...

-Don't notice the goats.

-..and the goats are just, like, having a crazy great time.

-LAUGHTER

This is everything I hate about yoga.

LAUGHTER

There's goats jumping on your arse

and you don't go, "Ha-ha."

That's craziness.

You can, but then you're bad at yoga.

LAUGHTER

-Can I just say...?

-Whereas the sheep...

Yeah, don't go to yoga. LAUGHTER

-Perhaps more pilates be more for sheep.

-Yeah.

I've never seen a sheep jump. That's my point.

-I think goats are very agile.

-Sheep can jump.

-Sheep jump?

-Yes.

-They can jump.

-Yeah, they jump over...

-In your dreams!

-Because sometimes they jump for no reason at all.

-LAUGHTER

Can I just say, my game has not gone where I was expecting, all right? LAUGHTER

The simplest way to tell them apart

is that goats' tails point upwards.

That is the easiest way.

It's almost like they're asking for it.

LAUGHTER

Don't listen to him, he's a bad man!

-That is a kind of...

-That's why they have the horns, right?

-That's the whole point of the horns.

-Yeah.

-AUDIENCE GROANS

-Don't listen to him either!

They're both terrible men.

So sorry.

You've ruined the yoga class.

LAUGHTER

Everything's ruined.

So, another clear distinction is kind of a martial arts style.

So, rams back up and charge in order to butt heads,

whereas billies will rear up.

Look at that, that's fantastic.

-They'll rear up on their hind legs and try and nut their opponent.

-OK.

And when the two species fight each other,

the ram's style gives an advantage,

cos he hits the billy in the middle, amidships there.

But also, another difference between them is...

they look different.

LAUGHTER

Look different.

Spelt differently.

-Tails.

-They have different names.

-Different names.

OK.

Let's find out whether you're right,

whether it is in fact cos they look different,

as we play...

Sorting The Sheep From The Goats!

-Yay!

-CHEERING

I'm telling you, Jimmy, you're going to be hosting this before long,

this quiz show. LAUGHTER

OK, here we go, first picture.

-Goat.

-Sheep, sheep.

-KLAXON

In your face!

You had it, it's a sheep.

The giveaway is the long, floppy ears there.

-That's definitely a sheep. OK.

-And the fact that it's a sheep.

LAUGHTER All right. Next one.

-Ah.

-Oh.

-Sheep.

LAUGHTER

Colin, say the opposite of what it looks like, I think that's the game.

-Say the opposite.

-A dog.

It's an angora goat. Next one.

What are we going for?

I'm saying sheep cos it looks like a goat.

OK, the main reason we know it's a sheep is because the tail is down.

OK, next one.

What do we reckon about this one?

LAUGHTER

-Pig sheep.

-It is a pig.

It's a curly-coated Mangalica from Austria or the borders of Hungary.

Actually, the really extraordinary thing was,

I talked about sheep's tails hanging down,

so about a quarter of the world's sheep

are what they call "fat-tailed" varieties,

so they store fat in their tails.

-Whoa!

-They've got booties.

Yeah, just like a camel stores fat.

-Can we show that?

-LAUGHTER

So, they store fat in their tails,

-rather like the camel stores it in their hump...

-Yeah.

..and there are various sources, so Pliny the Elder,

-right up to Bruce Chatwin.

-Oh.

They state that some of these sheep were actually fitted

with a wheeled trolley to carry their tails around behind them...

-Ah, the...

-Oh.

-..because there was so much fat in them.

The Kardashian sheep, yes.

LAUGHTER

I am familiar.

Now, what's the opposite

of a plant-eating sheep?

-A plant that grows sheep.

-It's a sheep.

LAUGHTER

See, just when I think what I said is really clear...

LAUGHTER

You now sound like a vegan who's really hungry.

LAUGHTER

-The opposite of a plant-eating sheep would be a...?

-A sheep-eating plant.

Yes. Yes.

Well done, Colin.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Colin, I'm just going to remind you, I said at the beginning...

-Yes?

-..the more you get wrong, the more points you get.

I don't know if that's going to affect you in any way.

LAUGHTER

So, there is said to be a sheep-eating plant.

It is called the Puya chilensis. There it is.

Same family as the pineapple.

-And what it does...

-It sounds like...

This is someone that's stolen a sheep

and his friend's gone, "Where's my sheep?"

And he's gone, "What, your sheep?

-"It was the bloody plant, mate."

-LAUGHTER

"Bloody... Oh, you should have been here."

"Don't take your eyes off that pineapple."

LAUGHTER

So what happens is, the sheep gets entangled in its spiny leaves

and then the sheep starves to death.

THEY ALL GROAN

Then the animal decays and it takes the nutrients,

as it decays, into the soil.

There is one in Surrey, at the Royal Horticultural Society in Wisley.

In 2013, it bloomed for the very first time in 15 years.

The spokesman said,

"We keep it well fed with liquid fertiliser,

"as feeding it on its natural diet might prove a bit problematic."

LAUGHTER

Now, this is a human optogram.

What does it prove?

I always thought optograms

was that thing where they could look in your eye

and see who had murdered you.

-What now?

-This was, like, before, like, DNA and stuff.

And they were like, oh, no...

I think we always had DNA, it's really...

-LAUGHTER

-Yeah, but it's not...

-More like before we knew about it.

-We could test it, yeah.

-Yes, OK.

So, it was like, "Oh, I'm a Victorian policeman,

"this woman's died.

"I know, we'll get her eyes out,

"have a look on the retina,

"the last thing she's seen, that'll be the killer."

Was that, like, a commonly held belief?

Well, it began in the 17th century.

So, there was a priest called Christoph Scheiner,

and he'd claimed he had seen the image of a flame

on the retina of a frog that he had been dissecting.

So, then you get the development of photography, so that's about 1840s,

and that seemed to provide a, sort of,

theoretical basis for this notion.

There was a German physiologist called Wilhelm Kuhne.

1878, he immobilised a rabbit

and forced it to look at a window for three minutes.

Then he decapitated it,

cut open the eye and, the next day,

he said that the retina dried and revealed an image of the window.

That was the last thing that the rabbit had been staring at.

-Bullshit.

-LAUGHTER

Right, so he was able...

-So, he was...

-Rubbish!

He was able to reveal that he killed the rabbit?

-LAUGHTER

-Yes.

That's a bit of luck. I could have saved him a bit of time there.

LAUGHTER

1880, he decided to repeat this experiment

with the head of a guillotined murderer,

a man called Erhard Gustav Reif,

and his left eye was dissected

ten minutes after he died,

and the resulting optogram is that picture that we saw

-at the very beginning...

-Oh, so it's the guillotine.

Yes, so it's been suggested it's the blade of the guillotine.

It seems very unlikely, he was blindfolded at the time.

LAUGHTER

The last bit of toast he had.

LAUGHTER

Unfortunately, all we have is that sketch.

We don't have the actual image.

So, this idea about optograms was taken up by fictional writers,

so Jules Verne and some of the popular press,

and it appears, because this was widely believed,

that some killers took the precaution

of taking their victims' eyes with them,

-to make sure there was no photo.

-They seem really, principally,

-to be concerned with her hat in that picture.

-Yes.

LAUGHTER

"Where's her hat?" "I think it's over there."

LAUGHTER

"I can't reach it!"

"Take a step nearer."

Do you know where Albert Einstein's eyeballs are?

-They weren't buried with him?

-No.

1955, they were removed during his autopsy

and they were given as a gift

to his personal physician Henry Abrams.

Oh, and they made the first one of those desk toys.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Oh, my God!

As far as we know, they're in a safe deposit box in New York City

but there's quite a thing of it.

Do you know where Napoleon's penis is?

LAUGHTER

Is it Wellington's house?

Again, we're not entirely sure.

It was taken off at the autopsy

and then it was, sort of, displayed around the world,

and much mocked for its size. ALAN MAKES POPPING SOUND

Yes. LAUGHTER

And in the end,

a urologist in New Jersey, called Dr John Lattimer,

he bought it and he was so upset

at people teasing Napoleon's penis - I mean, weird -

he had a special box made

and it's in the family home in New Jersey, as far as we know.

I was in a very strange store in the East End of London,

and the last man that was hanged in Britain,

they have his penis for sale.

-Do they? How much is it?

-How much? Yes.

LAUGHTER

Yeah. And was he hung?

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Perfect.

Anyway. Here is a simple one.

Who's the opposite of Tarzan?

Yes?

Nazrat.

KLAXON BLARES

LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE

-Yes, OK, I'll have a crack.

-Yes, OK?

-Yes?

-So, it's going to be a wild...

Like, an ape raised in a city.

-So, Wayne Rooney, Liam Gallagher?

-LAUGHTER

They shave and they walk upright, but it's not good, is it?

-They should be with their own kind.

-Well, in a...

LAUGHTER

In a way, you're right.

The opposite is an ape brought up as an English gentlemen,

and there was such a thing. It was a lowland gorilla, who was...

-Oh, my God, he looks so human!

-LAUGHTER

It was a lowland gorilla orphaned by hunters in the Gabon.

He was put up for sale in the Derry & Toms department store.

He was known as John Daniel. He was bought, in 1918, for £300.

So, that's about £20,000 today.

He was bought by Major Rupert Penny

and entrusted to his sister, Alyce Cunningham.

And he lived in a country house in Gloucestershire. Why not?

And he was brought up as a boy, not as a gorilla.

Although, I say a boy fond of drinking whisky and port.

He was fed on children.

-No, went to the village school.

-How did he do?

Well, this is the thing,

he was quite good at making his own bed,

he was quite good at doing the washing-up.

He could use light switches and the lavatory.

-Oh, was it one of those Montessori schools?

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

He preferred the company of women.

When there was a group of men,

-he would urinate on them, which is not...

-Oh!

LAUGHTER

And he would walk into people's houses and help himself to cider.

LAUGHTER It's actually kind of a sad story

because, eventually, he grew too big and Alyce couldn't manage him,

and she sold him to an American for 1,000 guineas,

and she thought he was going to have a wonderful life in Florida.

But, in fact, he was made to join the Barnum and Bailey circus

-and was displayed in a zoo in Madison...

-Aww.

-Hey, hey, hey.

-Yeah, yes.

-Let's try and focus on the positive - show business.

He got into show business.

And his health deteriorated,

and Alyce was sent a telegram to say that John Daniel was pining for her.

She set sail for America

but, very sadly, he died of pneumonia before she arrived,

-aged just four and...

-Oh!

-Yes, it's a really sad story.

And he was given to the American Natural History Museum,

where you can still see his body displayed.

But he did...

For that brief period of time, he was a boy in Gloucestershire

-growing up.

-Living as a boy.

-Living as a boy, yeah.

But a chimpanzee is all right

until they get to about a year old, and then they'll rip your arm off.

-Well, here is the thing...

-That's the trouble.

And tigers are like that. We had a tiger on Jonathan Creek, right?

And they brought this tiger in with a chain, and about three handlers.

And they said, "Will Alan do a photo with the tiger?"

So, I was a bit apprehensive, and I said, "Are you sure?

-"I mean, it doesn't know me."

-Yeah.

-They said, "Oh, no, it's fine.

"They're not really a danger until they're about 12 months old."

I said, "Oh, good, good. How old is this one?"

-And he goes, "It's 11 months."

-LAUGHTER

OK. Here for the audience, ready?

By a cheer,

who's fed up with austerity?

CHEERING

Me too. So, time to take the opposite tack, I reckon.

Let's have a bit of ostentatious consumption.

So, I've got some menus here, for you, from a Chinese restaurant.

-Chinese takeaway, Col?

-Oh, excellent.

-There you go.

-Chinese takeaway.

-Now, the Kangxi Emperor,

who ruled China around 1700,

was THE most ostentatious eater of all time.

So, here is my question,

which of his eight mountain delicacies do you fancy?

-Leopard foetus?

-Yeah.

And this... And these are... These are...

I can't...

The vegan can't talk any more, she's having a panic attack!

LAUGHTER

I don't think there's anything here for me.

LAUGHTER

-Well, apart from the...

-Are we not having a seaweed?

Well, there is vegetarian stuff here, there's the boar's testicles.

You don't necessarily have to kill the boar for those.

-That isn't how veganism works.

-Oh.

-LAUGHTER

It is an actual menu from the birthday of the Kangxi Emperor.

He called it the Manchu Han Imperial Feast,

so it's kind of like a fusion-style blowout, really.

Because he was trying to reconcile rival factions

so he was showcasing both the Manchu and the Han cuisine.

The meal lasted for three days,

there were six successive banquets,

124 starters and 196 main courses.

The seafood platter included

sea slug, fish tripe,

swallow's nest, shark's fin and fish bones.

But it was the mountain delicacies that really pushed the boat out,

that was your leopard foetus and your camel's hump and so on.

So, that is your consignment of general knowledge for this week.

Now it's time for the opposite, General Ignorance,

-fingers on buzzers, please.

-Ah, too easy, come on.

This is a telescope called Amanda.

She's at the South Pole.

So, first of all, what constellation must she be pointing at?

# Ivory... #

Southern Cross.

KLAXON BLARES

Amanda is the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array,

is what Amanda stands for.

So, what might Amanda be pointing at?

Is someone getting changed nearby?

Or is she checking out her ex boyfriend?

So, we're playing Opposites, right, it wasn't Southern Cross.

-Oh.

-North... The North Pole.

Yes, she is pointing towards the northern sky,

so she's pointing towards, what would we have?

Ursa Major. Polaris.

The same is true of an even bigger one,

the Ice Cube Cosmic Neutrino Detector.

So, the thing about this is, although she's at the South Pole,

she's actually pointing down into the ground.

So, she is pointing towards the northern skies.

Why didn't they just put it at the North Pole?

LAUGHTER

Because she's designed to detect neutrinos.

-Oh!

-These are really, really small, sub-atomic particles.

They don't interact with matter.

So, they normally pass straight through the planet.

Me neither, to be honest.

LAUGHTER

They're teeny, tiny particles

that travel at near light speed.

If you held your hand up to the sun,

a billion neutrinos would pass through your hand

as you held it up to the sun.

-I have a question that's...

-Yes?

-It's related to this.

-OK.

-The constellation on the right there...

-Yeah?

Is that called the Rat Slowing Down?

LAUGHTER

ALAN SCREECHES

"I've gone way too quick!"

I think he's gone out of that spin in the middle,

-and gone, "Whoa!"

-Yeah.

So, these have almost no mass and no electric charge,

and they're incredibly difficult to detect.

Now, there are cat lovers and there are cat haters,

but who's lap will the cat sit on?

# Day... #

Cats always go to the people who don't like them or who are allergic.

KLAXON BLARES

Um, yes, they do.

-No.

-They do.

Well, the only scientific study that we found,

in fact, finds the opposite. So...

They've only done one?

What are they spending their money on?!

You know the cat on the right there,

the cat on the right that's being kissed by the lady is...

-I think that cat's married.

-LAUGHTER

Just from the expression of,

"Oh, my God! Don't take a picture, how am I going to explain this?"

So, people who believe the perverse cat theory,

-there are various explanations.

-Yes, yeah.

Well, first, cats don't like being stared at

is one of the reasons that they give.

They perceive it as aggression, so they prefer people who ignore them.

Cats pick up hostile body language

-and they act to try and placate it, that's one of the things.

-Yeah.

In fact, there's only one small study has been done

by the Anthro-zoological Institute at the University of Southampton,

and they were unable, really, to find much effect at all.

They had eight cat-lovers, eight cat-haters

and the cats didn't seem to be bothered who they went to.

-They were...

-Not exactly a wide study.

It's not a massive study, Colin. LAUGHTER

-No, yeah.

-Felines don't make beelines

towards people who hate cats.

This painting, have a quick look at this painting, what is it?

The Scream?

Yes, The Scream by Edvard Munch.

What does it depict?

-It's a... Now, I know this.

-Yes.

I think.

But it's someone who is hearing screams

from a hospital or something.

You're nearly there. So, it is actually not somebody screaming,

-it is somebody...

-Somebody hearing screams.

..hearing a scream of nature, is what Edvard Munch said.

So, it's a figure of indeterminate gender,

she or he, they're not screaming, they're hearing a scream.

So, it's the opposite of what we might think it is.

The scream of nature in German, Der Schrei der Natur.

So, his account of the inspiration for this painting

further bears this out.

"I stopped and looked out over the fjord,

"the sun was setting and the clouds turning blood red.

"I sensed a scream passing through nature.

"It seemed to me that I heard the scream.

"I painted this picture, I painted the clouds as actual blood.

"The colour shrieked. This became The Scream."

He sounds like a bloody great laugh, doesn't he?

LAUGHTER

The scream in Munch's The Scream is heard and not seen.

And that's your lot for tonight.

Let's have a look at the scores.

Well, with a rather magnificent minus 47...

Colin.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Sara, with minus 14.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I'm happy with that. I'm happy with third.

With a very, very creditable minus six...

Alan. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

With a full 8 points, it's Jimmy.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That means, Colin, that you are the winner

-and as you would expect...

-Oh, I thought I'd won!

-No.

Tonight's prize is the very opposite of an objectionable object,

it's this extremely tasteful QI mug.

There you are, congratulations.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

It only remains for me to thank Sara, Jimmy, Colin and Alan.

I leave you with this quote

that is definitely apposite, or maybe just the opposite of opposite,

from the economist, JK Galbraith.

"Under capitalism, man exploits man.

"Under communism, it's just the opposite."

Thank you and goodnight.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE